TurnHurst have recently finished the pair of workshops; Making/Showing (& Making/Showing Virtually). It was a great experience and it started to create this amazing sense of unity within my peers. What we forget sometimes is to help eachother, and even if your piece is the best in the world, it will look rubbish if others aren't up to scratch, or the gallery walls are a bit dirty, or nobody has bothered to sweep the floor. Guest tutor Jefford Horrigan was really amazing to kick us all into action and start working as a team instead as individuals.
A big subject that needs to be addressed is that of ambition, within the work. So much is pinned on this degree show it becomes this strange almost trade show. It's not an exhibition and can never be, but we will try as hard as we can to make it coherent and at least look pleasing together. The work needs to be ambitions, this is the last chance we will have such a large studio, workshops (and technicians and tutors) on tap, and the knowledge and inspiration of our peers. We want to make something which stands out but from being trained to think of work that is achievable it is had to change the way you are wired.
The workshops were a chance to try out some new, bigger, ideas. A review of the whole thing will be posted soon but for now, here is our sculpture which is currently being displayed in the main foyer of Kingston University Knights Park Campus.
TurnHurst are currently involved in workshops; Making/Showing. It's a good chance to make something big, and something new – i think a lot of us have regressed into our old ways in the run-up to the degree show. It's exciting to work to a deadline again (since the exhibition) and to have to work flat out all day, every day.
One half of the workshop is focusing on using found footage within video works. This interested us as we have used found objects/footage already within our work.
We looked at work by Candice Breitz (http://www.candicebreitz.net/), Christian Marclay (http://www.whitecube.com/artists/marclay/) Jack Strange, and the work of one of my tutors, Volker Eichelmann. With collaborators Roland Rust and Jonathan Faiers they have created a huge archive of footage from tv and film, all of which references art (people in galleries, painting, exhibitions, etc). Having started over 10 years ago they now have over 3 hours of footage which they show in various different ways; sometimes splitting it up into themes (like Erotic, Photography and Openings) or sometimes playing large random chunks from the huge selection they have.
It makes me consider how limited we are in terms of storylines and themes. People say there are only ever 7 storylines, and they were all written by Shakespeare. I have been recommended The Seven Basic Plots by Christopher Booker – it's in the library so hopefully it will give me some answers, or help me with my questions.
Our video will be up here in a few days time.
We are in a cabaret night @ the Global Café in Reading on March 7th. There'll be live music, belly dancing, and of course, TURNHURST.
For the night we will be Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo. It's a good opportunity to test some of our performative theories about the work we've been creating – seeing our Just the Two of Us photographs as more of a record of a performance rather than it being the actual work.
For now, we are learning how to tango, and perfecting our mexican accents. Will post photos as and when.
Within a lot of our work, the end product or result sometimes doesn't reflect what we believe it to be. For example, our Just the Two of Us (couples photographs) became more about the performative aspect of dressing up and embodying the artists/iconic photographs whereas I'm not sure the completed work reflected that.
Artist Heather Phillipson gave an artists talk on Wednesday and as some of her has a duality to it (her work Taps, for example – is the work the sound made by the taps, could it become a piece of music in it's own right, or is the work the performance of her doing it, in the British Library Toilets)
One of our new video works has brought about this problem for us. In the video we both attempt to make an Origami Crane to fast, youtubed instructions. The video is a piece but so are the end results-as sculptural forms. Are they both integral to the work or must we decide what reveals what we were doing most successfully.
Documentation of an work and of events/happenings has traditonally been an issue for performative artists and is continuing to be so. In a recent inteview with Francis Alys in Art Revie, this was the only issue cited in a very complimentary review.
New video from TurnHurst. Exploring some new ideas and new elements to our collaboration. Will endevour to explain them soon but for the moment, we are really enjoying ourselves…
Please go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CsbvxjK3yec
